The value proposition of automated matter management, in the context of enterprise legal management (ELM), is nested in visibility. Visibility into all relevant information pertaining to a specific matter including:

Establish predictable budgets for new matters

Manage service providers

Standardize legal process and workflow

Assign, track and supervise tasks

Maintain a current status and situational awareness

Control legal spend including invoice review and approval

In an ideal world, the matter management system provides corporate counsel with insight into all current matters with which a corporation is engaged. It provides a means for collaborating with outside law firms and the ability to see the granular details with a click.

This is inherently valuable since within large legal departments, there are many moving parts. In the U.S. the largest organizations can have both hundreds of staff and attorneys – both inside and outside the corporation focused on legal matters.

Matter management systems enable the GC to gain better control over this large mix and deliver greater and transparent value to the business.

3 Benefits of Corporate Legal Matter Management

All of this data, aggregated in a matter management can be analyzed to provide actionable information to drive better decisions and legal outcomes for the business. Some examples are:

1. Legal spend management. How much should a company pay for legal services? Certainly legal work isn’t a commodity and value is often of greater concern than the average cost per hour of a firm. However, over time, matter management systems can provide a good sense for how long a project will take as well as its average cost. This leads to more effective negotiations and predictability in budgeting.

2. Legal matter strategy. At what point does it become more advantageous to settle or litigate? Corporate counsel’s ultimate goal is to reduce risk – and by providing analytics about previous matters, costs and outcomes – corporate lawyers can make data-driven recommendations or decisions about the optimal path forward. Data driven options also resonate with business leaders who are less accustomed to dealing with the complexities of legal strategy.

3. Visibility into legal risks. What is the status of a given matter? What is the overall risk profile of my portfolio of matters? With multiple touch points on a given matter, and with several members of staff both inside and outside a company collaborating on a project, the ability to have all information related to a case a fingertip length away is incredibly valuable. Changes in matter status can have financial second and third order effects the business needs to know immediately.

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The common theme to these three primary benefits is managing legal costs – without sacrificing quality – while also reducing uncertainty by using data and analysis to drive better outcomes.

About Frank Strong

Frank Strong is the communications director for the LexisNexis software division located on NC State’s Centennial Campus in Raleigh. In this capacity, he leads communications efforts in support of software products for law practice and law department management and also litigation tools – across large law, small law and corporate counsel segments. With more than 15 years of experience in the high-tech sector, Strong previously served as director of public relations for Vocus, which developed marketing, PR and media monitoring software. He has held multiple roles both in-house with corporations, ranging from startups to global organizations, and has also endured the rigors of billable hours, having completed gigs at PR firms including the top 10 global firm Hill & Knowlton. A veteran of two year-long deployments, Strong has concurrently served in uniform in reserve components of the military for more than 20 years, initially as an enlisted Marine and later as an infantry officer in the Army National Guard. Strong holds a BA in Film and TV production from Worcester State University, an M.A. in Public Communication from American University, and an M.B.A. from Marymount University. He is a PADI-certified Master Scuba Diver and holds a USPA "B" skydiving license.

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This blog is maintained by the LexisNexis® Business of Law Software Solutions (BLSS). BLSS is dedicated to developing software that helps professionals at law firms and legal departments of all sizes manage the business element of their practice or departments with innovative software and mobile solutions for customer relationship management (CRM), time and billing management, matter management, client analysis, legal holds and more.